We Should Have An Intelectual Debate (or DUEL) On Any Topic...Read on(philosophy)

We Should Have An Intelectual Debate (or DUEL) On Any Topic...Read on(philosophy)

Let the Intelectual Battles BEGIN
Ok.. rules are no flaming and no ad-homonim on their reasoning give atleast 2 reasons to support ur views/theory/proof/ can be religious beliefs coupled with scientific or anthropologic study to support ur views
Topics? to be discussed

Does God Exist/what is God?(my answer is yes)

Does Hell exist?(same yes)

Morality?.Do we have "Freedom?"(no) Euthenasia good or bad?(good) is pornography immoral?(yes)Do humans have free will?(no)is abortion moral? is gay marriage immoral?(yes)

What is the fate of mankind?

Is there a Possibility that life only exist on Earth? (no)or Life exist other than earth?(yes)

Why Terrorist attacks America?(religious beliefs/intervention(s) of America to the affair(s) to other countries?)

IF REPLIED I WOULD GIVE U MY DEDUCTION CONDUCTION PROOF AND REASONINGS

Alright, I've got one that I'm interested in hearing others' opinions on. It is my contention that Democracy (Representative or Direct) cannot function in a society such as the US, where the media plays such a prominent role in the miseducation of its citizens.

Now, should you contend that the citizens aren't influenced majoritarily by the media, I would allude to 3 instances in which it is negotiable, if not apparent, that citizens know only half truths. The Nicaraguan conflict int he early 90's was largely ignored by major news medias, despite the fact that it is still, to date, one of the most poignant examples of terrorist action in the world. America was responsible for these breaches in the etiquitte of war, and as a result they were not focussed on within the states. Because of this, there are very few citizens who are even cognizant of this event. The same can be said about certain facets of the Patriot Act. Only those portions of the Act that were heavily covered in the media are recognized by the public, at large. While other portions (phone tapping, the marginalization of the burden of proof, etc.) are unknown to them. And lastly, I would allude to the idea that a majority of citizens form opinons on presidential candidates based solely on information on Television.

In the past, there was more accountability on behalf of the media for the information they give. That's not to say that if a broadcast company presents false information, they won't be punished, but rather, that these companies are more and more only presenting opinionated information. While many citizens still look to these programs for factual information with a minimal amount of interpretation, the contrary is true.

Because of this, Democracy is not feasible. Democracy is contingent on the idea that the polis is of certain ability and knowledge with which to function as an extention of the government. Intrinsic to this idea is that each individual is able to keep his self-autonomy. The self-autonomy of these individuals are being taken through coercion and misinformation. The result is a polis who is acting as an extention of those individuals who feed them information. Thus, we don't have a Democracy, but instead a Guardianship. And furthermore, this disables any ability we have to function as a Democracy.

This is way too many questions for one thread, but I will pick one. If say you can argue there is a god, how do you explain away the problem of evil. (Put simply: "It is logically impossible to believe that both evil, and a good and powerful God exist in the same reality, for such a God certainly could and would destroy evil.")

This is way too many questions for one thread, but I will pick one. If say you can argue there is a god, how do you explain away the problem of evil. (Put simply: "It is logically impossible to believe that both evil, and a good and powerful God exist in the same reality, for such a God certainly could and would destroy evil.")

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I think most religions state that evil will be destroyed in times to come. Also, the fact that you perceive something as 'evil' and something as 'good' shows you have some internal form of standards with which to compare these. Since its largely agreed whats good and evil, whats right and wrong, whats fair or unfair, then all of us have this same set of moral standard. What would make us so homogeneous in our morals, unless we have the same creator? If our morals or set of standards evolve individually, there would be no reason to argue on whats right or wrong, since everyone would have their own set of standards. People can only argue if they're debating on the same platform.

This is way too many questions for one thread, but I will pick one. If say you can argue there is a god, how do you explain away the problem of evil. (Put simply: "It is logically impossible to believe that both evil, and a good and powerful God exist in the same reality, for such a God certainly could and would destroy evil.")

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God has created reasonable beings so that they could choose between good and evil.Free will of Man is the way of God to put him to the test.If he had no free will,he wouldn't have the will to choose good instead of evil.If he hadn't wanted to have good and evil exist in the same world,he wouldn't have created reasonable beings,he would rather have created perfect beings without any free will.

Hell exists because we exist. It may not be a tangible place but it is reachable if you have the right (and by this I mean the wrong) mindset.

We make our lives and other peoples lives better or worse based on how we view the world. If we have a positive world view (altruistic), then we tend to make other people's lives easier and better; in such a world where everyone acted in this fashion, there would be no hell (but as we all know, this is not the case). If we have a negative world view (narcissistic), we make everyone else miserable at our expense; this makes the world a living hell for some.

I think most religions state that evil will be destroyed in times to come. Also, the fact that you perceive something as 'evil' and something as 'good' shows you have some internal form of standards with which to compare these. Since its largely agreed whats good and evil, whats right and wrong, whats fair or unfair, then all of us have this same set of moral standard. What would make us so homogeneous in our morals, unless we have the same creator? If our morals or set of standards evolve individually, there would be no reason to argue on whats right or wrong, since everyone would have their own set of standards. People can only argue if they're debating on the same platform.

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who said we agree on what's right and what's wrong.....

abortion
capital punishment
euthenasia
Homosexuality
etc
etc
etc

10 bucks says you can't get more than even 90% agreement on the morality of these topics, much less 100%. heck, it'd be tough to get 70% on a some.

God has created reasonable beings so that they could choose between good and evil.Free will of Man is the way of God to put him to the test.If he had no free will,he wouldn't have the will to choose good instead of evil.If he hadn't wanted to have good and evil exist in the same world,he wouldn't have created reasonable beings,he would rather have created perfect beings without any free will.

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Sure, that sounds good, but what's the point of leaving us here in the first place? Just to see if we'll choose to be good? God's supposed to be all knowing, so he knows what we'll choose. why punish the good and reward the evil with this existence? seems to me a much simpler explanation is there is no god at all.

Besides, if we were truly reasonable, we'd all use spaces after commas and periods to distiguish between sentences and clauses. You see written communication is more efficient if it is easily recognizable, and any reasonable person would be willing to encourage efficiency.

Clearly this is not the case, because you refuse to use spaces properly, and I refuse to look up words i can't recall how to spell.

SuggestiveName said:

This is way too many questions for one thread, but I will pick one. If say you can argue there is a god, how do you explain away the problem of evil. (Put simply: "It is logically impossible to believe that both evil, and a good and powerful God exist in the same reality, for such a God certainly could and would destroy evil.")

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Agreed on both points. (too many questions, and the impossibility of both god and evil co-existing)

10 bucks says you can't get more than even 90% agreement on the morality of these topics, much less 100%. heck, it'd be tough to get 70% on a some.

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True, but what we use to define these and argue over them are still certain standards we all have. Each point has good vs bad points.

Abortion:
good: prevents an unwanted birth which would make the child in question have a miserable life
bad: killing a baby

When we argue about these topics, we are merely debating over whether the good points overide the bad points, or vice versa. We argue over whether the foetus is actually alive already. Notice how you don't list the morality of murder as something we cannot agree over? Abortion could or could not be murder. Therefore argument can ensue as to the 'rightness' of such an act.

Same goes with euthanasia, there are good and bad parts of it that is similar to abortion. Same with capital punishment. (good: gets rid of people who murder [murder is wrong. If we're not agreed, we can't even charge them.] etc etc. bad: again, whether we have the right to take somebody's life just because they did something wrong.)

Homosexuality is just wrong.

So its more of the good and bad points within each of such topics that we discuss about. The question is whether the 'good' in them far outweigh the 'bad', or the 'bad' far outweigh the 'good'.

If we each have a different set of moral standards, no one would argue about such points as it would be pointless. If i went and said something like "Abortion should be supported because unborn babies die!!" You would go "wtf?" Even when debating over such issues, we hold certain moral standards.

DanteAlastor: When you learn English, or even how to spell the word intellectual while attempting to be it, I will consider making a reply.

Lastly: My Jesus could clean the floor with your Jesus.

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ok sorry for my human mistakes specially spelling the word intellectual because im not perfect like you
im so sorry because i was rushing and i am bound to my human imperfections not like you..

by the way Jesus is not a God... he's a man but not ordinary man.. Jesus is the Savior.
why do you say "my jesus" ... is jesus your property? you are also implying that there are 2 jesuses "your jesus" and vs "my jesus" thats your fallible belief.

i think we should vote on what topic we should vote and debate on that only 1 topic. because men cannot multi-task vs women who multi task.

debating too much topic can cause confusion and loss of flow of thought therefore we must vote..
1 vote on Euthanasia.

I don't get it. Why can't God be evil? Where was that assumption made and why?

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The traditional view of God is that he is a perfectly good and all powerful being. If God is evil, then the problem is solved, but we lose God as a basis for morality.

djgoat and public enemy: You are arguing that evil in the world provides us with free will and the ability to choose between good and evil. The problem is we are stuck in a sort of moral paralysis. Example: God allows people to die in earthquakes all the time. I have a very accurate tool to predict earthquakes, and I know one will happen in Los Angeles tomorrow. Do I warn the city or not? After all God wouldn't warn the city, and since God is perfectly good, the moral, good, decent thing to do is to let those people die.

Secondly, how does a world with no natural evil preclude free will? The causal connection there is shaky at best with no argument to support it.

Did you just get a bulk order of Pandora's boxes, and couldn't wait to try them out? A thread on anyone of these subjects is likely to get pretty heated, but all of them? Well, fortune favours the bold as they say...

Agreed theres too many points up for discussion.

One thing I would say is alot of the topics are questions basically about faith. Unfortunately either way, theres no really way to prove it. Its impossible to prove something doesn't exist, and one of the keystones of faith is the belief in something that is unproven, in a scientific context.

Also, the 'is the a possibility that life only exists on Earth?' question. Of course the answer in yes. Theres always a possiblity that life only exists on Earth. It might be tiny beyond measure, but until we find extra-terrestrials the possiblity remains.

And I final point, I think saying that terrorists attack America because of religious beliefs is on the risky side. I don't believe it says anywhere in the Quran that America must be attacked, just as theres no where in the Bible that says you've got to set off on crusades. Terrorists decide on a course of action and then twist their religion to justify it (indeed just as the crusaders did...).